Howard Hughes - FAIL!
So, I didn't set out yesterday not to write. I had every intention of writing at least a thousand words. At least. But. The distractions -- the heat, some minor pain, insecurity about the book, and then the asshole from Cox Cable. On the latter, the least excusable (least excusable that I let it ruin my day, I mean) of the lot. After a month without cable, the Cox installation guy shows to hook up the cable.
I'd already determined that neither of the two jacks were suitable, one being in Spooky's sewing room and the other in the second parlour (which we are using mostly for ritual space). So, I figured, no problem. It's a short distance from the sewing-room jack to the television, maybe ten or fifteen feet, at most. But he refused to do it, because (get this), we might trip over the cable and sue Cox. He was summarily dismissed from the house. We shall live without television. I'm sure we will be better people for it. There's not even that much I'll miss, and what I do miss will mostly be made available via the internet and DVD, anyway. Also, we'll save $70 a month. But I am sick to puking death of the idiots who run Cox. They have something of a monopoly up here, and they act like it. At least they're aptly named.
By the time the Drama of the Cable was done, the day was fading. I was fading. It was very hot inside and outside, despite Dr. Muñoz' best efforts, and obviously nothing was getting written. So. Though it was the wrong thing to do, the most wrong thing I could have done, I wrote the day off as an L. Must have been about 4:30 p.m. We left for Beavertail about an hour later, fleeing to cooler weather and a calmer environment. I climbed down onto the tilted beds of Cambrian phyllite and just sat and stared into the wild, rough sea. We'd had a steady wind all day (hot wind in Providence), and the surf was whipped into a frenzy. It seemed a frenzy to match the noise in my head. I sat in the sun, the salt spray on my face, the sea tumbling over the rocks and rushing through a rift worn in the rocks below me. Too often, I go to the sea and become fascinated by the constituent parts - the rocks, the birds, the sea life. Yesterday, I sat and tried to think on nothing but the whole, all at once. And slowly, I grew less agitated, and then, as the sun was replaced by clouds from the west, I grew calm, and then ecstatic at the sea. Only the cormorants distracted me from the incoming tide. I think cormorants have become my favourite coastal bird...er, glorified dinosaur. By the time we left, it was getting dark, maybe 7:30 or 8 p.m., and we were both shivering and very damp, a little sunburned. We'd stopped, on the way down, at McQuade's, a market in Jamestown, and, because someone had remarked that on sixth anniversaries it was traditional to give candy, I got Spooky a pack of NECCO wafers and she got me a pack of plain M&M's. We're cheap dates, what can I say. There are photos behind the cut:
The choppy, roaring surf.
Looking north.
One of the more interesting bits of beach trash we've ever found. Spooky fished it out of a tidal pool. It's actually an ad for Claritin and Allegra, at least in part.
Looking north, as the sun goes down.
It was impossible to truly capture these waves in photographs.
Looking back to the northwest, up towards the lighthouse above us. The first lighthouse here was built in 1749, but was destroyed by fire in 1753. The 1753 lighthouse was rebuilt in 1856. This is the one that stands now, having survived even the Great Hurricane of 1938.
More lighthouse.
Back home, we had tuna sandwiches for dinner, then escaped into Second Life for a while. Some good rp in Toxia (thanks Cerdwin and Bellatrix) as Labyrinth. blu_muse has some really wonderful screencaps from last night up. Just click here. To see them full size, click twice to reach the largest version. That first one - Labyrinth showing Cerdwin the light of a dying star, a star slain by Nareth - wow. Oh, and I should mention, I'll likely be putting out the first official call to the Sirenia Players this evening, so if you are on the list, you might want to be on the look-out for a communique. Sadly, there was also some very, very annoying out-of-character crap in SL last night, because some people simply cannot grasp that SL is not RL ("Real Life"), nor should it ever be used as a substitute for RL, and that the Story is god. When rping with me, everything serves the story. Everything. So, yeah, annoying. But, you have to let that crap roll off you and just keep going.
It's chilly and wet here today. So maybe I can avoid the distractions. All I have to do is write. The rest is irrelevant.
And yes, I am ignoring Independence Day, which should have been replaced this year, again, by a day of national shame, not pride.
Postscript (1:10 p.m.) - My thanks to robyn_ma for pointing out that Jesse Helms, the bastard from North Carolina, has died. Now that's something I can celebrate.
I'd already determined that neither of the two jacks were suitable, one being in Spooky's sewing room and the other in the second parlour (which we are using mostly for ritual space). So, I figured, no problem. It's a short distance from the sewing-room jack to the television, maybe ten or fifteen feet, at most. But he refused to do it, because (get this), we might trip over the cable and sue Cox. He was summarily dismissed from the house. We shall live without television. I'm sure we will be better people for it. There's not even that much I'll miss, and what I do miss will mostly be made available via the internet and DVD, anyway. Also, we'll save $70 a month. But I am sick to puking death of the idiots who run Cox. They have something of a monopoly up here, and they act like it. At least they're aptly named.
By the time the Drama of the Cable was done, the day was fading. I was fading. It was very hot inside and outside, despite Dr. Muñoz' best efforts, and obviously nothing was getting written. So. Though it was the wrong thing to do, the most wrong thing I could have done, I wrote the day off as an L. Must have been about 4:30 p.m. We left for Beavertail about an hour later, fleeing to cooler weather and a calmer environment. I climbed down onto the tilted beds of Cambrian phyllite and just sat and stared into the wild, rough sea. We'd had a steady wind all day (hot wind in Providence), and the surf was whipped into a frenzy. It seemed a frenzy to match the noise in my head. I sat in the sun, the salt spray on my face, the sea tumbling over the rocks and rushing through a rift worn in the rocks below me. Too often, I go to the sea and become fascinated by the constituent parts - the rocks, the birds, the sea life. Yesterday, I sat and tried to think on nothing but the whole, all at once. And slowly, I grew less agitated, and then, as the sun was replaced by clouds from the west, I grew calm, and then ecstatic at the sea. Only the cormorants distracted me from the incoming tide. I think cormorants have become my favourite coastal bird...er, glorified dinosaur. By the time we left, it was getting dark, maybe 7:30 or 8 p.m., and we were both shivering and very damp, a little sunburned. We'd stopped, on the way down, at McQuade's, a market in Jamestown, and, because someone had remarked that on sixth anniversaries it was traditional to give candy, I got Spooky a pack of NECCO wafers and she got me a pack of plain M&M's. We're cheap dates, what can I say. There are photos behind the cut:
The choppy, roaring surf.
Looking north.
One of the more interesting bits of beach trash we've ever found. Spooky fished it out of a tidal pool. It's actually an ad for Claritin and Allegra, at least in part.
Looking north, as the sun goes down.
It was impossible to truly capture these waves in photographs.
Looking back to the northwest, up towards the lighthouse above us. The first lighthouse here was built in 1749, but was destroyed by fire in 1753. The 1753 lighthouse was rebuilt in 1856. This is the one that stands now, having survived even the Great Hurricane of 1938.
More lighthouse.
Back home, we had tuna sandwiches for dinner, then escaped into Second Life for a while. Some good rp in Toxia (thanks Cerdwin and Bellatrix) as Labyrinth. blu_muse has some really wonderful screencaps from last night up. Just click here. To see them full size, click twice to reach the largest version. That first one - Labyrinth showing Cerdwin the light of a dying star, a star slain by Nareth - wow. Oh, and I should mention, I'll likely be putting out the first official call to the Sirenia Players this evening, so if you are on the list, you might want to be on the look-out for a communique. Sadly, there was also some very, very annoying out-of-character crap in SL last night, because some people simply cannot grasp that SL is not RL ("Real Life"), nor should it ever be used as a substitute for RL, and that the Story is god. When rping with me, everything serves the story. Everything. So, yeah, annoying. But, you have to let that crap roll off you and just keep going.
It's chilly and wet here today. So maybe I can avoid the distractions. All I have to do is write. The rest is irrelevant.
And yes, I am ignoring Independence Day, which should have been replaced this year, again, by a day of national shame, not pride.
Postscript (1:10 p.m.) - My thanks to robyn_ma for pointing out that Jesse Helms, the bastard from North Carolina, has died. Now that's something I can celebrate.